Field of the Invention
The present invention is an oral device. More specifically, the present invention is an oral function device.
Description of the Related Art
People such as children or adults because of developmental problems (e.g., cerebral palsy, Down's syndrome) or an acquired injury (e.g., a head injury or a stroke) may experience a loss of their oral-motor function (e.g., failure or loss of previous abilities to chew food or eat, failure or loss of abilities to swallow, or failure or loss of abilities to speak).
The ability to control the lower jaw is the foundation of many human's most significant abilities (e.g., feeding, speech, swallowing and respiration). As babies start to develop their feeding skill from sucking milk, to suckle, and then to munch food at the age of six to seven months, and then start to develop some vertical jaw movement and biting at the age of twelve months, and start to develop some lateral jaw movement at the age of eighteen to twenty-four months and by the age of thirty-six months, most children may develop mature rotary jaw movement and manage most solid food easily. From a developmental point of view, some children have failed to achieve these developmental milestones and feeding skills because of inadequate basic foundation oral-motor skills (e.g., weak mastication muscle strength and inadequate lower jaw's mobility and stability).
The present invention may solve the aforementioned problems of delay in mastication such as inadequate strength, range of motion of lower jaw and lack of appropriate experience of lower jaw in different directions of movement.